I might be being a bit harsh in saying this – I’m sure there’s a couple of directories out there that aren’t dreadful. Dmoz is probably the best example. The Yahoo directory can give sites a boost too. The vast majority, on the other hand, are pointless.
Recently XMCP created a thread on Wickedfire to help answer some general SEO questions. By the way, if you’re going to stop off at Wickedfire and say hi, feel free – they’re good guys and they’ve got a ton of information to share on SEO, PPC, affiliate marketing and other similar stuff. If you’re going to stop off to try and spam your shitty ebooks on them, maybe you should rethink targetting a group of affiliate marketers with a sense of humour. This post is a summary of some of the more interesting points that were found in XMCP’s thread, I’ll elaborate on these points later on because they’re all quite expansive.